


I Don't Know

by citrusella



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s05e18 A Single Pale Rose, Fallout/Aftermath, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-05 00:35:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14605284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/citrusella/pseuds/citrusella
Summary: Will this ever make sense? Will this ever feel normal?





	I Don't Know

Steven awoke from his nap with a start, the last image from his dream—Pink Diamond, grinning a sharp grin he couldn't quite interpret—fresh in his mind.

The house was empty for now, save the errant crash of a wave or squawk of a seagull that passed through the thin screen door.

And the boy who had passed through the many, many layers of a renegade Pearl.

Amethyst was "out". Sapphire was gone. Ruby was looking for her.

And Pearl had seen he needed space and opted to give it. He didn't know if she was still in her room, but it was where she had been when he'd fallen asleep.

He lay on the couch, looking to the ceiling, because it wasn't like he could look to someone else for answers—apparently the gem that had actually been shattered after all of this was his own family.

He blinked.

He sighed.

He _felt_.

Betrayed.

Wrong.

_Stupid._

He was _stupid_. It was his own gem, and he _hadn't even known!_ He may have only been part gem, but weren't gems supposed to _know_ what they were?

Then again, he guessed not knowing what he was supposed to be wasn't exactly new. It was just… different now.

_Everything_ was different now.

He sat up and looked to the guise of his mother on the wall. Somebody would probably want to take it down now that everyone knew how Rose—Pink—ugh, _he didn't even know what to call her now_ had lied to them all. But even now he was surprised that he didn't seem to know how to feel about that.

It felt wrong to take it down somehow. Sure, she wasn't who almost anyone thought she was, but… she was still his mom. Wasn't he still supposed to care about her, to love her? Weren't people supposed to do that, didn't they have some special bond with their moms or something?

He guessed his ambivalence about that wasn't new either. Mom had never been around, not like that; he might as well have not even had a mom. She was scarcely more than a figure of his imagination, an empty shell he could project his own hopes and fears onto.

Project, like a gem projected their form. Like _she_ twisted her gem and shapeshifted so she wasn't even recognizable as her original self.

Right now, projection wasn't remotely something he wanted to think about.

He wanted to eat a bowl of sugary cereal and watch _Crying Breakfast Friends_. Except they were on hiatus like they _always_ were nowadays, so he couldn't even have _that_ uncomplicated comfort. And Amethyst had finished off the cereal this morning.

It had barely been eight hours and yet he still missed when things could be simple. Well… relatively simple. He supposed fighting corrupted gems and everything was probably super busy and confusing, maybe even a little messed-up to someone else, but…

He cringed. Mom had screwed up everything! She had betrayed _every_ one! She'd made a war that might not have even had to happen, hidden her identity from Garnet, forced Pearl to—

_Pearl._ Once upon a time, she had _belonged_ to Mom, like she wasn't even a person or something! (Did that mean she "belonged to" him by extension? The idea made him shudder.) She had forced Pearl not to say anything, and it was _torture_ to watch her try! (It was probably torture to her, too.) He wanted to take it all back, but he wasn't even sure he actually could! He might have had the gem, but he wasn't Pink Diamond!

…Was he?

He had all those powers, powers other gems didn't have, and everyone had chalked it up to being _special_.

And he supposed he _was_ special, all right. But this wasn't a kind of special he ever wanted to be, wasn't the kind of special that felt even a little remotely nice.

Steven rubbed his gem through his shirt, something that had been an innocuous, usually-absentminded habit for many years but now took on new meaning and purpose.

He had Mom's gem, had _Pink Diamond's_ gem, and to Homeworld, that was as good as saying he _was_ her. What would happen if they found out? Would they take him away? Would he ever see Pearl, Amethyst, Garnet, or Dad ever again?

…Did Dad even _know_? He had said he and Mom didn't really talk about the past, but surely…

No. Upon thinking about it, he supposed not.

_That_ would be a fun conversation.

He looked down, realizing he had taken the hem of his shirt into his hands and had started wringing it gently in worry.

Some part of him wanted to cry—out of sadness, pressure, or some desire to try to magically heal this, he wasn't sure—but the action never reached his eyes.

He let out a deep exhale. What were they all supposed to do now?

The warp pad activated and he stiffened in fright even as he knew it could only be one of six people.

Pearl appeared, a basket in her arm. She must have gone to do laundry while he was asleep.

She glanced up, expression changing from that methodical look she got when doing chores to a deeply forlorn one when she saw Steven.

"Oh! I didn't realize you'd be awake. Would you like me to leave?"

He grimaced, hesitating to respond, afraid he might be capable of forcing her to do things she didn't want to do.

Pearl seemed to understand this answer anyway. She walked to the kitchen counter, sat the basket down, and then joined Steven on the couch. For the moment, neither said anything.

Steven looked up, meeting her eyes as she gazed down at him.

That was all it took for the floodgates to open. The tears snaked down his face in a fashion reminiscent to Pearl-Rose's so many eons ago as he wrapped his arms around Pearl's midsection, feeling simultaneously older than his years and like a small child all at once. Pearl's frown intensified as she rubbed his back and patted his hair.

After a few minutes, the two separated, Steven slumping back onto the cushions as Pearl sat more upright. Steven sniffled and fixed his eyes on a scratch on the coffee table, the idea of looking at anything else right now overwhelming.

"Pearl..? Will… will this ever make sense? Will this ever feel normal?"

Pearl, for all her extra context of the situation, had still been trying to make sense of it for 5000 years. She clasped her hands in her lap, looking down at them with a sigh. "I don't know."


End file.
